These are the states where you're most likely to end up with a serious health problem

The best treatment for a disease is to not get it in the first
place. That's why we put ourselves through checkups and vaccines,
and keep an eye on our personal habits. But some states are
better at this preventive care than others.

In a new America's Health Rankings report from the United
Health Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on improving
healthcare, the group outlines the states with the best — and the
worst — preventive care.

To get its numbers, the group looked at three main areas:

Access to healthcare,
measured by the percentage of adults who had healthcare
coverage, annual dental visits, and a personal doctor.

Rates of
immunizations among children, teens, and
adults.

Access to
chronic-disease-prevention methods, measured by the
percentage of adults who had their cholesterol checked, had a
colorectal cancer screening, or were told they had high blood
pressure.

The data for the report was
gathered from government reports including Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System reports, the 2014 National Immunization
Survey, and other published studies.

Massachusetts outshone every other state in terms of preventing
chronic disease and providing the best access to healthcare.
Mississippi, on the other had, ranked far below the national
average in both these arenas and more.

See how your state compares:

United Health Foundation

State of preventive care

Beyond ranking all 50 states, the report also broke out the three
components, with the lightest color indicating the states that
were doing the best in a particular arena. For the most part,
there wasn't much variability among the three metrics, with many
states falling consistently in the same category.

Here's healthcare access:

United Health Foundation

And immunizations:United Health Foundation

Notably, South Dakota did the best job of getting adults to get
flu shots, while North Carolina and Rhode Island were best at
vaccinating women and men, respectively, for human
papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted infection that can
lead to cancer. Rhode Island is one of only a
handful of states to mandate the HPV vaccine, which has been
controversial because of concerns that it will promote teen
promiscuity.

And finally, here's a look at how states are doing at preventing
chronic diseases:

United Health Foundation

Apart from Utah, which ranked the highest in preventing high
blood pressure, Massachusetts managed to top the other 49 states
in its efforts preventing chronic disease (characterized as
lasting more than three months).